


The Sweetest Colors

by Skeren



Category: Naruto
Genre: Crossdressing, Gen, Genin Teams, Minor Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-31
Updated: 2013-08-31
Packaged: 2018-03-16 03:21:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3472553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skeren/pseuds/Skeren
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Many snapshots of Itachi's time with his genin team. Good and bad.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Sweetest Colors

**Uncle**  
  
Itachi knew, in the way that children often did, that his parents expected a great deal from him. This had been the case from the time he was very small, though the way this was expressed changed drastically between the then and the now.   
  
When he was four, his father was convinced he was unintelligent. This was, admittedly, not entirely the man’s fault, as Itachi had been a very quiet child. Some say he was too quiet, always watching, always seeing, and at that point, more than a few had claimed that this was a sign that he was not understanding. The exact opposite was true, of course, but that is something that would reveal itself later.  
  
At the time, he just knew that only his cousin seemed to see the value in him, and then that cousin was gone, taking with him any desire he’d had to go out and prove people wrong about him. He’d fallen back to silence, only breaking the vigil to murmur to his newborn brother.  
  
So what changed? Another cousin, one of the ones who insisted on being called uncle, caught him practicing with his kunai in one of the new training fields, getting used to it after the moved compound had displaced everyone in the wake of the Kyuubi. The man had then spoken to his father, and not long after Itachi had found himself in the academy, no longer permitted to spend his days with his baby sibling.  
  
That uncle never got a thank you, and Itachi felt he didn’t deserve one.  
  
  
 **Splendid**  
  
The class numbers weren’t even, but somehow this never quite registered to Iruka. After all, if he was solidly middle of the class, then he never had to worry about being left out of the ranking because they had the wrong number of students, and if he was inventive enough with his pranks he never had to worry about actually being caught and thus otherwise disciplined for it.   
  
What he failed to take into account with these absent thoughts was that sometimes, it’s the fact that you didn’t get caught that actually grabs the attention of the people who know what to look for, and that solid middle rank is only adequate protection if the rank is genuine. In Iruka’s case, he was, indeed, mediocre at some things, but the abilities he used in his pranks belied what he tended to do in class, and it made the instructors take note of it. In fact, his absolutely convincing manner when asked about the things he did decided a few things that would affect the rest of his life.  
  
For example, on the day teams were assigned, his name wasn’t called. He was asked to stay behind, and the eleven year old was introduced to a jounin only five years his senior named Ibiki. He was apparently to be part of the jounin’s team, and the man had declined getting his trio at once, citing that he was keeping an eye on one of the kids from the next group.  
  
So, in essence, for the next few months, Iruka was going to have one on one instruction with the rather large teen that spent much of his spare time around the Intelligence building. This could be deemed a positive, he was sure, or Iruka could be bitterly disappointed that he hadn’t gotten a team from his own class.  
  
In the end, it was hard to be disappointed when your instructor declared that your pranks made excellent training though, and he decided that he’d just be happy with the arrangement after all.  
  
  
 **Enthusiastic**    
  
Itachi was not a happy seven year old. The reason for not being happy? Why, that was very easy to determine if one were to look to his left, at which point they would land their eyes on  _the_  most annoying person that Itachi had ever laid eyes on. His other teammate was quiet. Well, if not quiet then at least not intent on talking to him. Nor attempting to make sure he spoke back.  
  
Umino Iruka seemed utterly dead set on getting him to speak, and he simply couldn’t fathom his reasons for doing so. After all, his quiet nature had, once it was established that he  _could_  talk if he chose to, been praised by his parents and other close family. The teachers he’d had in academy even seemed enthusiastic about his silence, feeding him bits of work at higher levels as he finished everything ahead of the curve, and leaving him to his own devices. He hadn’t been prompted then to speak to the other children, so why this teen, one who had been in none of his classes, wanted him to converse was utterly beyond him.  
  
Somehow their other teammate, an older boy named Yori, had managed to fend off Iruka’s friendliness without much trouble. It was a skill that Itachi dearly wished he knew, and he suspected that doing anything other than watching it at work would result in the ominous aura being directed at him. Still, after an hour of listening to the twelve year old poke and prod at him, he decided that enough was enough.  
  
He wanted a bit of the oh so coveted silence too.  
  
Thus, he attempted to gain it, deciding that he would start with a straightforward request. “Could you go away for a while please?”   
  
The reply he got was cheeky and accompanied with a playful grin that warned Itachi that this was someone he’d learn to be wary of. Why, he had no idea, but one didn’t argue instinct. “But ‘Tachi-chan, you’d get lonely if I left you alone!” When Itachi’s look turned both wary and scathing, the older boy’s expression softened into a simple smile. “Don’t think I didn’t notice you keeping away from all the rest of the kids when I first got here, and I don’t happen to think that it was because you didn’t want any friends.”  
  
He didn’t want to address the truth of the boy’s latter statement, and thus put all his vehemence into one thing. Protesting the childish nickname. “Don’t call me that! It’s Itachi-san, not… ‘Tachi-chan’.”   
  
"Oh please, you’re so a chan. I could pick you up and carry you around in one hand. You’re  _tiny_. And don’t even argue, seriously, all you Uchiha have that issue I think, that whole delicate chibi thing. I _saw_  that other Uchiha around the academy and he had it going on when he was your age too.”  
  
For a moment, the younger boy could think of no reply, and he finally managed to splutter a coherent answer. “That does  _not_  make me a chan!”  
  
Unfortunately for Itachi, Iruka didn’t really agree. “If you say so ‘Tachi-chan.”  
  
The Uchiha could come up with no proper argument to such a blunt dismissal, and the boy just slumped, deciding to go back to simply ignoring the older boy instead. This accomplished two things. Firstly, Iruka went back to pestering him in ‘get to know you’ fashion instead of using the new name. Secondly, it ensured that the nickname would stick forever.   
  
After all, for a prankster, if you didn’t argue that was sometimes as good as permission.  
 ****  
  
Toothpaste  
  
Yori was unimpressed. In fact, Yori was so unimpressed that the smile Iruka was giving him merely spiked his incredulity, his yellow-green eyes narrowing to annoyed slits. “What did you just say?”  
  
"I said that before we left the village I rearranged all the packs so that we could move more quickly… and I might have forgotten a thing or two in the process."  
  
There was a stare down between the two twelve year olds, and finally, Itachi couldn’t take it anymore, the seven year old pouncing forward, having dug through his own pack for his version of the disputed item. “Look, you don’t have to fight! Here, Yori, use my toothpaste, okay? Iruka didn’t mean to leave yours behind.”  
  
There was a beat of tense silence, and then the skinny boy snatched the container from the Uchiha’s fingers. “Fine. But no more touching my stuff Iruka, got it?”  
  
There was a grimace, then the shorter genin sighed. “Yes yes, no more touching Yori- _samas_  things.”  
  
And if that response got something that sounded suspiciously like a laugh from their youngest team member, well, Iruka wasn’t going to complain.  
  
  
 **Styx**  
  
There were stories, there were always stories in fact, about what happens after a person dies. In a strange way, before he found himself staring into the odd yellow-green eyes of Yori’s dead body, he’d never really given too much thought to what his own views on the matter might have been.   
  
Yes, people he loved had died. In fact, he’d even seen someone die in front of him before, but the two events had never overlapped. The loved one died, and from there the pyres were lit and the wake was announced. The enemy died, and he went home, secure that he had been kept safe for another day. Odd, how both those events had involved the same person.  
  
This though. This was something new and terrible in a way he’d never realized before. He’d never been in a situation before to watch someone on his side die.   
  
It had started simply enough. They were to deliver a scroll with some items to a non-shinobi village and come back. It was a simple C ranked mission, not intended to be terribly dangerous, and thus, none of them had really had their guard up. At least, not at first.   
  
That had changed quickly when Ibiki-sensei’s attention had been caught and he’d split off from the group, telling them to be wary while he checked what the situation was.  
  
From there, everything fell apart. Like a signal being dropped, the second Ibiki-sensei had left their sight a group had descended on them, coming from both sides of the forest in a small wave.   
  
They hadn’t been good shinobi, in the cases of those who were shinobi at all, so all of them should have been fine. In fact, all of them would have been fine if Yori hadn’t gotten it into his head that Itachi was doing more than his share of knocking out their enemies. It had been a telling look, a flicker of resentment that Itachi was doing better than him when all Itachi was trying to do was  _defend._    
  
A moment later, the boy had vanished into the fray, leaving Iruka and Itachi back to back to try to cover for the gap that had just been left in their defense as they attempted to move after him, moving quickly but never fast enough as they tried to get to their teammate.   
  
By the time they had reached him it was simply too late. One of the shinobi in the lot had scored a hit, leaving a deep gnash down Yori’s back. It shouldn’t have been bad enough to take him down. In fact, when Ibiki joined the pair at the boy’s side, he confirmed it. He also told them of the option that they hadn’t considered in their frantic efforts to stop the bleeding.  
  
Poison.   
  
They couldn’t fix it because they didn’t know what kind had caused the reaction, and the boy’s breathing had already started to splutter and fade, signifying that they would never get him back to Konoha in time for treatment. Searching their fallen foes had turned up nothing, and it slowly became clear that either the men around them were immune, or they had picked up the blade from somewhere else, leading to the possibility that they were ignorant about the poison on the blade themselves.  
  
When Yori realized the situation, he bared his teeth in a macabre grin, giving them a breathless laugh as he denied them any final words, clearly satisfied that he had told them everything he ever wanted to. Still, he watched them, waiting as they tried to do something, anything, to save him, and he had finally reached out, catching the smallest of the hands so that he was looking Itachi right in the eye as he died.   
  
It was distressing to watch light snuff out like that from familiar eyes, but he knew it wasn’t his fault. It wasn’t. Yori had acted all on his own. In the cycle of death, this time he had had no part, and all he could do was help his team handle the fall out of bodies and prisoners so that they could find out if this group had had a higher purpose. It was mindless work, merely keeping the alive under and checking to make sure the dead were really dead, and he let his mind wander.   
  
He knew, with absolute certainty, that the shinigami existed. He also knew, without a doubt, that somehow, some way, every person got to them by their own means.   
  
For Yori, he hoped he got there by water, because the boy had always loved swimming, and the least he could do was wish him good journey, because he knew his grief was too shallow to do him justice.   
  
Six months simply hadn’t been long enough to make him truly grieve, and he felt guilty for that, but there was no way to fix it. Instead, he’d just make sure he treasured the other two more, so that they’d know someone would miss them if they ever died. To do anything else would be to deny a lesson learned, and Itachi had always thoroughly learned his lessons.  
  
  
 **Helpless**  
  
Waking up in darkness was never frightening for him anymore. When he’d been a little boy, it had bothered him, and he’d often run off to go see his parents when the ominous dark would try to suffocate him.  
  
And then, the Kyuubi happened and he learned that there were things so much worse for him to be frightened of.   
  
Like being alone.   
  
Being alone was the worst sensation that anyone would ever know, and there were so many people that couldn’t comprehend it. In the end, though he had friends, some of them very dear to him, they never came back to his empty house, and they never soothed away the cold silence of knowing that no one would be waiting for him. They couldn’t.   
  
Worse, this last mission… It wasn’t the same as the night his parents died. That night he’d felt angry and helpless, overwhelmed by what he couldn’t do. This time… Seeing Yori, another orphan, someone who  _understood_  dying under his hands while trying to rip their youngest to shreds without words in his final moments… It scared him in a way the Kyuubi hadn’t. It showed him what bitterness could  _do_  to someone.   
  
It reminded him all over again that he was alone and that people die, not because they want to or should, but because there’s no way to stop it.   
  
He would give a lot to undo the last three days, to shake life back into the youngest, who had taken refuge in the quiet and in hiding his smiles behind big sad eyes. Itachi wasn’t alone. This, Iruka would go a great many things to ensure always remained so, but he knew that not all things were in his power, and this time, seeing someone they  _knew_  dying…  
  
He couldn’t undo any of it, didn’t have that power, but he decided then that he’d try to make sure that no one he cared about would have to be afraid of the loneliness that tried to haunt his homecomings, because it was a terrible thing, to have no one to turn to. He had people now when he hadn’t before his team. So he’d learn to be there for his team too. He wouldn’t just stand by and poke fun.   
  
He couldn’t afford to do that, or he might turn around and find himself all alone again. No family, no team, no one.   
  
He’d never wish that on anyone, so he would simply have to start now to prevent it from coming true.  
  
  
 **Responsible**    
  
Iruka knew he had to stay with Itachi, he knew it, and yet he’d still let himself get separated from his youngest teammate. It wasn’t his fault, not really, and he was sure that the eight year old wouldn’t blame him, but it didn’t stop Iruka from having a strong urge to panic as he realized that he didn’t know where the smaller boy was.  
  
It was an unspoken rule in the team. Ibiki-sensei watched over Iruka, and Iruka watched over Itachi. Whoever their last teammate was this week would be watched by all of them, and things would proceed forward from there. So far, it had worked wonderfully, and their team remained intact. They’d learned their lesson with Yori, after all, and none of them wanted to repeat their mistakes.  
  
And that, of course, was why Iruka was currently terrified. Mizuki had distracted him with a mistake, and he’d had to hurry to keep the older boy from accidentally getting himself killed, immediately losing track of Itachi in the chaos. Worse, he didn’t know if the small boy had managed to meet up with Ibiki-sensei, though he found himself doubting the possibility, as the man had flung himself away from his students, luring off the most aggressive of the attackers to keep the younger boys safe.   
  
In all, if Iruka hadn’t been so busy fighting, he would have ended up feeling a bit sick about the whole thing, but there was simply no time. No, his focus had to be on the here and now, with Mizuki, to keep his friend and teammate from being mercilessly destroyed by the pair of chunin that had gotten the pale haired male cornered. If you found yourself in a bad situation, always take care of what was closest and make sure it can’t chase you, after all.  
  
While sound in theory, the idea didn’t work as well in practice. No, the two were stalled, Mizuki’s injury early in the fight turning him into a liability as Iruka defended them both. The older boy attempted to keep his feet so he could at least dodge, but it was clear that he was getting sluggish from blood loss, and he could only hope there was no poison. Mizuki was, after all, a dear friend to him, the older boy almost like an older sibling more than a friend at times, and he didn’t want to lose him.  
  
Still, none of that made the fact that their group had been split up any better, and Iruka made himself focus on what he could _fix_  until their sensei finally emerged from the trees, Itachi in hand. This would have been a wonderful thing, if Itachi had been conscious and not  _bleeding_  everywhere. Instead, it was a minor relief as a whole new sort of panic kicked in, the tiny boy being shoved into his arms as Ibiki-sensei dealt with the shinobi that Iruka had been wearing down.   
  
In all, it was a terrible day, and Mizuki moved off to another team quickly afterward with people his own age. Apparently, being stuck with a jounin the same age as him had rubbed the teen the wrong way. Itachi, on the other hand, Iruka had found out, had been knocked out during the fight in an attempted kidnapping.  
  
After that, Iruka never lost track of his small teammate in a fight again. It might be unkind to think it, but a stand in could be replaced. Itachi couldn’t.   
  
 **Frau**  
  
Itachi loved his mother. In fact, if pressed, right up until he hit his teenage years, Itachi would be willing to admit that he thought his mother was the prettiest woman in the entire village. None of this, however, made the boy happy to hear that his mother was sighing over a toddler not his brother and muttering about how he ‘could have been part of the family.’  
  
Itachi was very very careful to not ask her to clarify these disturbing mutters, but by the time he was ten he’d still figured it out. Somehow, his mother had gotten it into her head to try to marry Sasuke off to another boy. It was baffling on several levels, not the least of which was that the boy in question was apparently that one that he saw roaming wildly through the village every now and then with ANBU trailing after him. Not that he was supposed to see the ANBU, no, but it had happened when they weren’t trying particularly hard.  
  
His only guess on what had his mother fixated was the fact that the kid looked like Minato-sama, and his mother’s redheaded friend had been pregnant before the Kyuubi happened. So… maybe she wanted her youngest to marry a hokage’s son? He supposed it would make sense, but still. Couldn’t she pick a girl? Or just be happy if the two were best friends even?  
  
But no, he would never bring it up. Instead, he’d gently try to steer his mother away from her strange thoughts.   
  
She would not turn his otouto into anyone’s wife.  
  
If that was going to happen, Sasuke would just have to do it himself.  
  
  
 **Apple**  
  
Pie was one of his favorite desserts. He didn’t like to admit this, of course, given the two genin he’d ended up with, but that didn’t negate the fact that it was true. Apple, in his opinion, made the absolute best pie because the crispness of the fruit translated very well into something sweet.   
  
That was the only downfall of his beloved Enoki really. It just didn’t translate well into a dessert at  _all._  Which was unfortunate, because he felt that if someone managed it they’d end up rather rich when fans of the mushroom flocked to give it a try. In the meantime however, he had apples to compensate for the gap, and he was perfectly happy with that. Still, hand waving being dragged away to dango or something of the kind by his older student could do nothing but good things for his reputation.  
  
If Iruka didn’t know it wasn’t the specific  _type_  of sweet that he was declining, all the better.  
  
After all, what kind of big bad jounin admitted to being weak to  _pie?_  
  
  
 **Travesty**    
  
It was horrifying, but it made sense and that made it all much worse, really. Somehow, in the mission parameters, no one had thought it pertinent to mention that the client was expecting a female guard for her daughter. In retrospect, this seemed perfectly understandable. After all, how many genin cells really didn’t have at least one female in the group?  
  
Sadly, his was one of the cells that just so happened not to have one, and they arrived well before word got to them that they should have brought along a girl as their stand-in on this particular mission. No, instead they’d gone as a three man group, man being the operative term, and had found out upon arrival that there was a girl expected as her daughter was ‘overly shy’ of boys.  
  
So what did Iruka, in all his esteemed wisdom, decide to do? He declared that he, Uchiha Itachi, was a girl, in public, to the woman’s face. To make matters worse, Ibiki-sensei had promptly supported the claim, explaining that they, to avoid trouble, made sure that he always wore something boyish before leaving the village to ‘avoid trouble’. The only trouble Itachi saw was the trouble that would come of him strangling Iruka in his sleep, but he let the idea grow on him. It was a practical, quick solution, and it would stop them from needing to further split the mission pay. He could be quiet and demure, kami knew his parents seemed to think him good at those traits, and the girl would be fine.  
  
What none of them had taken into account was that the girl was only ‘overly shy’ of boys because she was already boy-crazy, even though she was only ten. Itachi would know. She told him all about it. At length. While putting little bows in his hair and glitter on his cheeks. Thankfully she’d not tried to manually dress him as well, letting him have a moment of privacy to do it himself, but none of that managed to negate the humiliation that was coming out and seeing even Ibiki-sensei trying not to laugh after getting a good look at him.   
  
All so that an overly pampered little girl got a glorified sitter while her mother went to settle up some gambling debts.   
  
The mission may not have been dangerous, it was true, but Itachi could understandably say that he saw things no man should ever see while on it.   
  
  
 **Towel**  
  
It was one of those days where everything was slowed. No mission, no meeting with his sensei or Iruka, and he took in the time to just breathe, peeking around the door frame to see if what he sensed was so. Just him in the house. No little brother, no mom, no dad, just him, the lone Uchiha on the one morning where he would have had more than ample time to play with his little brother.   
  
Figures.   
  
Then again, when was he ever expected home anymore? He’d been a Genin for years now, and while he knew his dad was less than thrilled by his lack of progress, it was _fine_ now. Mostly. Shaking off the thought, he moved to the closet to collect a towel, whipping it around his shoulders as he set about gathering his bathing supplies. If he was going to have the house to himself, then he fully intended to enjoy it, after all, and he would too, because it was that kind of day.  
  
No reason to mope about when there was other company to be had, or, barring that, a nice quiet bath to soothe away the small pang of a lost chance to actually bond with his brother for once. It wasn’t such a big deal though. He had years to spend with his brother yet, so no need to fret over one morning. He was barely ten, after all, he wasn’t going anywhere.


End file.
